Fillmore, North Dakota is 100 years old

An official North Dakota ghost town had it's 100th birthday and hundreds of people came to celebrate.

The sign in the old church that greeted us.

This is all that is left of the once bustling town of Fillmore, ND. Once it had seveal grainaries and the train stopped here to collect all the wheat.

Setting up the giant food tent.  The horse trailers were to keep non paying people out of the evening concerts.

2nd Avenue. This is the street Grampa Marcus Thompson lived on, right behind the photographer.

The photographer turned arround and this is where Marcus's house used to be.

This is some of the noon time local talent and yes it was polka music.

What is left of the church bell tower.

This is what the church looked like in Fillmore's hay day.

Some food vendors showed up because Fillmore doesn't have any fast food places.  This is Kate's Kitchen. Kate is Judy's cousin. Good food - a bit more expensive than the compitition but you also got more stuff.

Judy and Sylvia being interviewed on camera.

Marcus owned a bar in Fillmore and he had tokins good for 25 cents.

More local talent - Balderdash.

This is a shot of Marcus's lot.  This is where Jerry and I parked during the festivities.

The Fillmore Cemetery sign.  Lots of Judy's relatives are burried here. 

The church bell tower was removed and placed in the cemetery as a memorial.  You can still ding the big bell, which Jerry did.

Fillmore was sooooo big that there were three exits on the dirt road leading past town, each one block apart..

The entire town of Fillmore from way before the first exit.

Even more local talent - the Lute-Krauts. They also played german polka music.

The the big concert happened the second evening with the Johnny Holms Band.  They are a really good pop (50's 60's and beyond) band and they weren't cheap. There were over 1200 people who attended.

Johnny Holms worked the crowd, including Bishoff with the beard.

Demolition Derby was Sunday afternoon - the last big hurrah.

Looks more vicious that it actually was. The cars began the derby already banged up.

The pink tiger lost a drive wheel and was out of the competition.

Here is the winner - number 111.

Some of the muster seed fields in North Dakota

This truck advertised the Fillmore event but there were no more signs showing the way - about ten miles of dirt road.  You had to be from the area to find your way there or follow someone.